


Revelations

by Primarina (PastelBrachypelma)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (I promise), Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Angst and Feels, Comfort Food, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Everything Hurts, Food, Food Issues, Heartbreak, Heartbreaking, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Starvation, Torture, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 04:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19221682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelBrachypelma/pseuds/Primarina
Summary: The prophet who predicted the Endtimes couldn't have predicted this.Heaven and Hell come up with the worst punishment possible, and the angel and the demon struggle to find each other once again.





	1. Lost

Crowley snarled under the bright florescent lights of the ASOS dressing room, turning from side to side and looking at himself. He wasn’t happy with what he saw.

Crowley wasn’t eating. Now, demons don’t have to eat to live, but when you have a body that has adjusted to human rules, eating helps the way you look. It gives you meat on your bones. And even if Crowley hated food with a passion (he didn’t), he could feed off of the little bits of evil surrounding him, if he so chose. The problem was that he wasn’t eating or feeding, and as a result, his body was looking, well…

Skeletal. Downright skeletal, like the body of Death himself. And all of Crowley’s clothes were hanging off his body more than they had before. He’d had to miracle new trousers multiple times in the past week. He wasn’t sure why his body was withering away so quickly. 

Maybe it had been longer than a week. Crowley’s head felt like it wasn’t screwed on right, like someone had taken it off and forgotten to tighten it properly when they put it back. His sense of time, his sense of his place in the world, had never been this bad before. But that was because he had something to mark it with. Now, he didn’t.

You see, Hell and Heaven had finally found a way to punish Aziraphale and Crowley for their traitorous actions. When the worst torture (aside from the killing, which the respective parties were now sure they couldn’t do) each side had to offer didn’t seem to persuade the two to return to their posts, they returned them both to Earth, flung across the globe three times over before being placed in a random location.

Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Crowley and Aziraphale could sense each other and could always find the other, even if one was layers underground. But, as it turned out, the worst torture that Heaven and Hell could think of was to hide the angel and the demon from each other.

Crowley had already gone through that once during the Not-So-Armageddon. And that was only a handful of hours. But he remembered the chill, the sinking feeling that slid into his blood like ice and wrapped itself around what little heart he had left. It had slithered into his stomach when he saw Aziraphale’s lovely bookshop up in flames, left him freezing cold even though he was surrounded by burning flames. He remembered how, after he’d found the angel again, all he wanted was to get to Aziraphale. And he’d do it by any means necessary. He did, in fact. In a burning Bentley, but yes, he did.

But now, with Aziraphale’s presence hidden from him again? The cold had enough time to become frostbite, searing his heart, making him feel hopeless, like he had when he’d Fallen. Except this was worse than Falling. Far worse. Because he needed Aziraphale. Needed him like ducks needed water.

Crowley’s head began to ache and he slumped onto the bench in the changing room. The lights were bright even behind his sunglasses. He felt…off-balance, exhausted. He wanted to be with Aziraphale, listening to him read, going out to eat with him, drinking wine and listening to the London rain. He’d do anything to be with Aziraphale again. He’d even relive the Fall over and over and over again for eternity, if only he could see his angel again.

The cold blossomed in Crowley’s chest and tears fell from his eyes in response. Cold tears. Without Aziraphale…he was a demon without purpose. A being without purpose. He might as well let this body starve until it discorporated and go back to Hell and spend the rest of his days hiding until…

Until…what? Until he faced a real bath of holy water?

Crowley lifted his head. The lack of nutrition made him feel heavy, but he wasn’t going to give up. Not now. All he had to do was find Aziraphale. He could overcome the little cloaking magic Heaven employed. He’d found the Antichrist, after all! Well…Aziraphale had, but…all the same!

Crowley staggered out of the dressing room and then out of the ASOS. His corporeal form was in such bad shape that he could barely walk properly (though it could be argued that he’d never learned how to do that in the first place), and his demon powers were getting weaker. He could barely drive the Bentley, let alone perform miracles, demonic or otherwise.

The demon huffed, falling into the driver’s seat of the Bentley. He was breathing heavily just from walking a few steps. It didn’t really help that he was in pain, aching, reeling from Hell’s worst forms of torture. He picked up his phone off the passenger seat, scrolling through until he found Aziraphale’s number and he smiled, thinking wistfully of biscuits and tea with the angel, looking over a glorious sunset. Yeah, he’d miracle all the biscuits and tea cakes in the world, just for his angel. And then they’d drink and eat until their corporeal stomachs ached from all the sugar.

Crowley put his hands on the wheel of the Bentley and tried not to pass out as he powered up the vehicle. 

He wondered how Aziraphale was faring, wherever he was. 

He hoped Aziraphale still loved him, still forgave him.

Maybe this time, he didn’t deserve it. But he’d ask the angel...when he found him.


	2. Hungry

Crowley was sitting in a café in Paris forcing himself to drink a latte. He needed the sugar, and the vanilla-sweet smell of it reminded him of the bookshop and Aziraphale’s scent that had seeped into every available nook and cranny.

He’d ordered crepes, because his angel had once almost died for want of a good crepe, and he thought it might help bring Aziraphale to him. No luck so far, and the crepe was getting cold. 

Crowley sighed into his coffee, watching the way the steam fluttered away from his breath. He could’ve sworn he heard the bells of a Heavenly Host…! 

Just as he’d perked up, he noticed it was a church. The demon made a face and glanced at the offending cathedral’s giant clock face. It was getting dark. He needed to catch his train back to London. 

He hadn’t brought the Bentley because it took far too much energy to drive the thing, which was a sting to his pride’s gut if he’d ever felt one. He hated public transport, though. So many mortals, buzzing about this and that. Their inherent noise was starting to get to him; he didn’t have Aziraphale to focus on to tune them out, and not enough energy to focus on something else. 

It didn’t help that coming up here, he’d been in the same train car with two violently homophobic men who took one look at two teen female-presenting lovers innocently holding hands and began radiating the worst kinds of thoughts. 

Crowley closed his eyes, salivating all over again. Personally, he found that sort of thing absolutely despicable, and he had often voted for the worst punishments for those who hated love in the past. (Sometimes he won, sometimes he didn’t, but he always voted.) Never in 6,000 years had he consciously fed off of this kind of hate. It went against the right ways of the world. And so what if Stonewall had maybe-possibly had something to do with him? It was Aziraphale in the end who…

But Crowley was hungry. And a demon that is hungry is a very dangerous creature indeed. He began to shake violently, clasping his hands together and pressing his forehead against his thumbs. He was trying valiantly to avoid losing control of his form. Demons who are hungry are better shapeshifters but they tend to go overboard. Crowley very much did not want to become like Hastur, devouring those call center workers. A giant snake would not be easy to overlook in a terrified, social media-obsessed world. Not to mention he didn’t really want to…eat people. The myths that demons sucked meat off bones and ate the tongues of their victims were mostly untrue. Humans are either very stringy or very fatty, and…well…

Crowley slammed his hand down on the café table, making the couple sitting adjacent to him jump, the girl nearly spilling her tea and the guy nearly putting the elbow of his no doubt expensive jacket into a slice of strawberry cheesecake. 

He wasn’t going to…he couldn’t. He’d tried that route before, and it had made him feel like shit for weeks for even taking a little nibble. He knew who he was now, and he would not return to his angel with a belly full of human bones.

Crowley swallowed thickly, pretending and believing as hard as he could that he was eating. He was still salivating over the hateful words those two men had thought about the couple across from them, the dirty thoughts about corrective rape and tearing them apart and the slurs that didn’t bear repeating, all because they were holding hands! It had smelled like the most tempting of foods to him, and the aura of it filled the car with the promised flavors of unjust hatred and pedophilia. Crowley had salivated then, barely repressing a hungry groan, wanting to get a little bit closer to the source, just a little bit. Just for a taste, just one bite…

Crowley brought out his tongue and curled it back into his mouth, holding his imaginary meal on his tongue. He didn’t dare be tempted by anything specific, or he might be filled by the residual energy it had left behind. Instead, he focused on the bite itself, the feeling of it. He swallowed dramatically, letting his throat work like a snake’s, pulling the meal towards his stomach. The demon took a deep breath afterwards and slouched back in his chair.

The ruse had worked to some degree. He felt less empty, and he felt like he had just a bit more energy than before. Crowley smiled contentedly, licking his lips, chasing the feeling of victory with the remainder of his latte before standing up, stretching his long arms out, and miracling some money for the bill. Then, hands in his pockets and sunglasses, as always, sat securely on his nose, he tipped the brim of his fedora (it was absolutely not a trilby, he’d like you to know, thank you) down over his face and started walking off towards the train. Even though the coldness of missing Aziraphale was still laced around him like a rope, he was enjoying the light breeze on the night air. 

He stopped to watch the ducks, reminded of that time he’d stood with the angel and asked for a favor it hurt Aziraphale to grant. Crowley smirked. Leave it to his angel to insist he could be saved. As if he’d want to go back to Heaven now, especially after what they did to Aziraphale, both before and now.

He hoped Heaven’s tortures were not as bad as Hell’s. He’d spend an eternity on a prayer wheel just to spare Aziraphale from torture.

The peace of the night was broken as a flock of pigeons rushed into the air like a wave coming off the ocean. Crowley sniffed and his eyes nearly rolled into his head with pleasure.

Hatred. Suffering. Betrayal. Delicious. The demon’s stomach actually growled like a wild animal, and Crowley groaned weakly, all pretense faded away. The gig was up, as Aziraphale would say. Crowley couldn’t fool himself into being full when there was a delectable feast right in front of him.

French was always Crowley’s favorite language. Probably because he helped create it. Hearing the angry words, feeling the hatred spewing from them, dissipating into the air, made it smell twice as sweet. 

In a trance, Crowley strolled closer.

The middle-aged couple were arguing under a bright streetlamp. The wife was yelling at her husband for sleeping with another woman, tears making her mascara run in black trails down her cheeks. The husband stood silent and cold, already lusting after his mistress, imagining her in the red lace corset she’d worn for him last night. His only thoughts of his wife were about how disgusting her body looked three kids later, how she’d never managed to lose the weight, how she was unworthy of him. What a proper bastard.

Crowley licked his lips, drawing closer while trying not to distract attention. He leaned against the side of the railing against the pond, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he panted as quietly as possible. All it would take to eat would be to reach out with his hand and gather the mist surrounding them. Then, he could put it into his mouth, just like that, or turn it into a pastry or a sandwich. It all smelled so good, all the misery and pain. It was so tempting, and Crowley was so incredibly hungry. His corporeal form was so thin that he had to miracle himself heavier so as not to attract too much negative attention. But underneath the façade of flesh, the horrible, aching thinness remained, and Crowley, who couldn’t see his own deception, was reminded by it whenever he caught sight of his reflection.

The demon’s stomach snarled and spit, but Crowley instead cupped a hand over his mouth and nose, closing his eyes. If he’d taken his glasses off before all of this started, you would have been able to see his serpentine eyes expanding, filling out the whites of his eyes, growing more and more desperate. But now, they were returning to a normal, manageable size. 

Crowley breathed into his hand as he reached down to press against his empty stomach. He didn’t even know before all this happened that maybe, in fact, demons did need to eat, and it might be wise to keep his stomach full, lest he go feeding off of sin and misery. The thing about it was that he didn’t want to eat sin and misery. He’d resisted doing so for 6,000 years since he met Aziraphale. He’d resisted when Hastur’s corporeal form dissolved in his car, filled with anger. He’d resisted when he’d killed Ligur; fear had been one of his favorite meals, so he was quite proud of that one. 

Crowley felt at his concave stomach, which was trying to command him to feed, and then turned on his heels and walked away as fast as he could. 

If he’d had the strength, maybe he’d have done that poor woman a favor by tying her husband’s shoelaces together, making him fall flat on his ugly face. Then, he’d do her a favor by making one of the ducks bite her ring finger, snatching and eating the wedding band sitting there. 

Maybe she’d still sell her engagement ring, Crowley would think to himself at a much later point in time, when his stomach was full. Or maybe she’d give it to her best friend whom she’d secretly loved for years and who not so secretly loved her back.

Right now, Crowley sat curled up on a poorly lit train car filled with drunks and night shift workers and tried to get some sleep over the roar of the tracks and his empty stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...
> 
> I don't have anything to say for myself. I just really like the idea of a hungry Crowley and what that might look like.
> 
> We've got one more chapter left, and then we go to Aziraphale's side of the story. When? Who knows?
> 
> In the meantime, I've got much happier Good Omens fun blogs! Crowley (@demonseekspeace on tumblr) and Aziraphale (@angelseekschaos on tumblr) could use someone to talk to. And I'd like practice with Aziraphale specifically, so if you feel like helping me out with their voices...please do so.
> 
> Thanks! I love you all!


	3. Starvation

Crowley was very, very close to giving up completely. On the “not-eating-sins” situation, not the “finding Aziraphale” situation. 

The truth was that he’d been downright afraid to eat sins. He was afraid of Aziraphale looking at him with disappointment and disgust, afraid that Aziraphale would send him away and really mean it this time. 

Afraid that Aziraphale might not love him anymore.

But Crowley was getting desperate. He’d checked every continent on Earth twice, ticking them off on his little map of the world on his phone (the app declared him “well-traveled,” thought Crowley felt more jet-lagged than anything), and there was still no sign of Aziraphale anywhere. What made Crowley despair further was the fact that his angel could very well be discorporated, wandering without a host body or captured by the Angels, and he’d be none the wiser. 

Being unable to protect Aziraphale was the worst thing about all this.

Crowley’s appetite was no longer making any distinctions with anything whatsoever. Even little white lies made him stop in his tracks and inhale deeply as if he’d just walked past a fragrant bakery. And the hungrier he got, the more his survival instincts were willing to try anything to get him to eat.

And that did involve a lot of fragrant bakeries. But it also involved noticing small animals.

Now, Crowley’s animal form had been a snake back in the day. He’d rarely made use of that form since the Garden, but the serpent was still part of his nature; the way he walked, his sly and cunning ways, his mischievous grin, his devious forward thinking. All of that came from the snake that was still an integral part of his person.

The snake…who was starving, too. And Crowley found himself tracking the movements of birds, squirrels, hedgehogs, and, yes, even kittens and puppies. (Crowley didn’t particularly…like…the popular companion animals of mortals, but he was certainly not going to eat something so vital to internet culture if he could absolutely help it.) He’d caught himself hissing hungrily and flicking his tongue at a fair number of hedges and trees, and watching the ducks these days was more of a daydream about what it would feel like to swallow one whole.

It was beginning to irritate Crowley immensely because it was detrimental to his search for Aziraphale. One moment he’d be retracing his footsteps through a park, the next he’d find himself drawn by the noises of two squirrels having sex, licking his lips as he thought about how soft and chewy their kits would be.

On the upside, he was more drawn to animals than he was to sin. But Crowley wasn’t all too sure that Aziraphale would forgive him if he ate a cute and tiny creature. So he kept starving himself willingly, getting thinner and thinner until it nearly hurt to breathe. His energy was so low these days that it seemed he could barely cross the local park in London, never mind drive the Bentley or miracle up money or clothes or coffee or anything. And all that was atop the constant hunger that made it difficult to sleep.

He was even becoming apathetic about his plants, and they were confidently showing spots and poor growth. And that just wouldn’t do. Even though Crowley felt like his life was falling apart without Aziraphale, he was determined not to let it show because he knew it would only distress the angel.

Well, his corporeal body would be worse for wear, but otherwise.

And then life, as it tends to do every now and again, threw him one hell of a curveball: an infestation of rats in his apartment.

He wasn’t sure if it was a pestilence from Hell (unlikely; they considered him truly defeated now) or just his bad luck, but yep, there they were. He saw them in his bathroom, hiding between his plants and nibbling on them too. He found them in his fridge and his bedroom. He heard them in his walls. And there were too much of them. Any snake would be trying to get to all that prey by now. And that was how Crowley, weak-willed and unable to resist temptation, found himself stalking the rats through the walls, listening to them chatter to each other, his serpentine eyes wide open, his tongue tasting them in the air.

The demon gave up and collapsed into his snake form, a glowing, dark copper. The serpent form was down to bone and muscle and twice as displeased about this. And Crowley needed desperately to eat. 

The snake darted to and fro, desperately looking for a way into the wall. Frustrated, Crowley returned to human form, hissing loudly at the rats, and stomped off. He drained his coffee mug and grabbed his coat. He was going to buy rat traps, for Hell’s sake, and eat them all at once as they sat in the little silver have-a-heart traps.

At least, that was the plan. When Crowley returned to his apartment, he couldn’t hear, smell, or see any rats.

Gone. Like magic.

Crowley made his new purchases burn to ash and then sank to the ground, a heap of a man in his doorway. It was truly pathetic, and at any other time, Crowley loathed being pathetic. But as his stomach demanded food he didn’t have, as his head spun, as his legs and feet ached even just from a brisk walk to the shops, Crowley felt practically ill with want. For a lot of things; food, a foot massage, a new blanket to curl up in. But what he wanted most of all was Aziraphale. He needed the angel to come and tell him everything was okay, and that he loved him.  


But Crowley was alone. And as the coldness ate him up inside, Crowley began to sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The starvation sets in, and Crowley really isn't prepared.
> 
> I originally had him eating at the end of this chapter...but I went with more angst instead. You're welcome...?
> 
> Next up: Aziraphale!


	4. Cry

Aziraphale had never felt so alone in all his life.

Even though he didn’t always agree with the other angels, being a part of the Heavenly Host is a bit like being part of a big, close-knit family. It’s very hard to feel alone when you always have someone to talk to.

He only started to feel more isolated as a principality on Earth. While he’d happily embraced Earth’s culture and the humans that inhabited it, the other angels began to look at him with scorn, as if he’d done something morally wrong by loving certain parts of humanity. Food included.

But he hadn’t had time to feel lonely because there was Crowley. Even back in the early days when he wasn’t quite sure what to think of the demon, he was always glad of the easy, predictable company they kept. While Crowley held surprises, it was never anything out of the realm of possibility for him, and Aziraphale appreciated that immensely. He always had.

And now he regretted letting Crowley leave the bookshop in a snit over milk, for Heaven’s sake! He’d been taken roughly to Heaven and, well. Tortured. If that’s even something an angel is capable of doing. (Apparently, they are.)

Michael took especial joy in running him through with tainted arrows, painted with the essence of Death. He could still feel their marks on his body, throbbing like a million wounded hearts. For some reason, they thought this might convince him to abandon Crowley and come back to the Host. Apparently, the little stunt he’d pulled with Crowley only made them greedy. A demon immune to holy water and an angel immune to hellfire are valuable assets for Heaven and Hell.

But Aziraphale had already decided nothing was going to make him come back to Heaven. He’d spent his entire existence convinced his side was in the right, and that the demons (Crowley aside) were nothing but trouble. In the wake of the Not-Pocalypse, he realized that angels could be horrible people and that demons can be lovely. (Of course, he meant “Crowley.” He’d never met another decent demon.)

Calling Crowley’s name wouldn’t do any good. Heaven had put a veil over Aziraphale’s eyes and his senses, meaning he couldn’t locate Crowley if he tried. The despair over losing the presence of his friend burned in his chest and throat like fire, painful and hot. It made him sweat and made his head feel awful and light, his stomach twisted and dizzy. 

He wondered if Crowley had felt anything like this when he thought Aziraphale had died. He remembered being discorporated and Crowley had told him about finding the bookshop aflame without a bookseller, but…that was all Crowley would say about it. And the angel knew it was to protect him, because that’s what Crowley did, after all. But he wished that Crowley would open up to him more, and trust Aziraphale to give him what he needed from time to time.

Aziraphale walked into a café he’d been to a long time ago with Crowley. He wasn’t sure what to call his arrangement with the demon. Most humans would probably call it a relationship of some sort. Aziraphale only knew that he loved Crowley, and was certain that Crowley loved him in return. After all, Crowley had showed him a million times over how much he loved him. 

In Aziraphale’s opinion, it was high time he returned the favor. If only he knew where to start, or had any clue at all about where Crowley might go. He felt wildly out of his depth, for he knew that he loved Crowley and he knew that he trusted the demon with his life, and always had even before he had fallen out with the Host. But he’d never asked Crowley his favorite places or foods. He knew the demon drank wine like a camel drank water, but…that was all.

Well. Maybe that was enough to start with. After all, the world wasn’t created in one day! Confident in his plan, Aziraphale ordered his tea and cake and then walked back to the bookshop. 

He set his food down and then grabbed a bottle of wine, popping the cork. He set it on the table in front of the sofa that Crowley was fond of sprawling on and sat back in triumph to wait.

And wait. And wait. And wait.

Aziraphale abandoned his cake when he felt the bottle and saw the wine wasn’t chilled from the cellar anymore. He miracled a seal onto the bottle and put it away, reluctantly going to bed. The sores from the tainted arrows were beginning to ooze pus, and he needed to get out of his clothes.

As Aziraphale lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling of his bedroom, he wished that Crowley could just walk in the door right now and they could forget the whole thing ever happened.

The ache in his heart was too painful to bear. Aziraphale rolled over into his pillow and began to cry bitterly.

Without his demon…he was barely a person at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Aziraphale. I swear, I'm SO bad at writing him. This is the problem with hyperfixation, because I've latched firmly onto Crowley, but can't do a thing with the angel. 
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> Anyway, enjoy the first installment of Aziraphale's POV! Not sure exactly how long this fic'll end up being, since I'm still fairly new to the fandom and yeah.

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, I told myself I wouldn't do a long fic with these two until I got Aziraphale's voice right, but my hand slipped and viola! I present you with...this.
> 
> It's going to hurt. A lot. I got this idea from a Tumblr post about Crowley losing his angel and well...I like character whump so. Here ya go. Maybe be prepared to cry? 
> 
> Don't worry, I don't write tragedies. But it might be a while before hope arises. Just saying.


End file.
